Ashfield Meetings & Events named in CMI 25 list

Ashfield Meetings & Events has been named to the 2014 CMI 25 list, the eighth annual directory of the largest and most influential full-service meeting and incentive travel management companies focused on the U.S. corporate meetings and incentives industry.

Compiled by Penton’s MeetingsNet, a tablet magazine and website dedicated to the meetings and incentives industry, the list is a key resource for meeting managers, incentive travel executives and procurement professionals researching information on the industry’s leading outsource partners, and is the most comprehensive listing of the largest independent meeting managers serving the corporate world.

This is the third consecutive year that Ashfield Meetings & Events has been recognised by MeetingsNet in the CMI 25.

“In total, the CMI 25 drove 9.1 million group room nights in 2013, an increase of about 7 percent over 2012. These meeting planning companies play a significant role in the U.S. meetings economy, last year orchestrating 68,652 corporate meetings and 4,241 incentive travel programmes around the world” said MeetingsNet’s Editor Sue Hatch.

“We are delighted to be included in a list as prestigious as the CMI 25” said Gavin Houston (CEO Americas, Ashfield Meetings & Events). “Our continued focus on operational efficiencies as well as the development of our venue sourcing and engagement services has resulted in significant growth. It has become more commonplace for our clients to use our full suite of engagement services such as communications and creative offerings. We will imminently be launching a radical secondary brand to help redefine these services and offer our clients a new way of thinking that will be both brave and disruptive. With the infrastructure and support of Ashfield it will give us two brands with a broader, more diverse skill-set and more powerful communications offering.”

The magazine’s editors selected CMI 25 companies based on several factors, including the number of meetings and incentive travel programmes managed in 2013 and the total number of room nights represented by those meetings and incentives. They also considered the number of full-time employees at each company, as well as the percentage of the company’s 2013 revenues that came from organising corporate meetings and incentives versus association meetings or other sources.

The CMI 25 list will be published in the September 2014 issue of the MeetingsNet tablet magazine. Ashfield Meetings & Events will also be recognised at a CMI 25 reception at IMEX America in October.